A Creed in Stone Creek (28 page)

“I don’t know,” Andrea said.

“You don’t know,” Melissa repeated, absorbing that.

“After Byron realized his mom’s car was missing, he told me to go back to my apartment and stay there. He said there was going to be trouble, he could feel it, and he didn’t want me to be involved.”

“And you went home? Just like that?” Melissa was skeptical. The Andrea she knew wasn’t fond of taking orders.

“Yes,”
Andrea replied. “Byron was really upset, and I was scared. Not of Byron, but of whatever had scared
him
so much.”

“So you’ve been home, in your apartment, since Byron sent you away?”

Andrea bit her lower lip, then shook her head. “No,” she answered, after a few beats. “The Crockett sisters heard about the robbery over their police scanner, and they couldn’t wait to tell me that Sheriff Parker and all his deputies were out hunting for Byron. I panicked and went over to Velda’s, and Nathan was there. He told me Byron was in big trouble, that he’d pulled a heist with a deadly weapon and Velda had gone to the jail to try and do something to help—”

A chill trickled down Melissa’s spine. “And after that?”

“Steven Creed brought Velda home. She’s a basket case. Nathan’s making like he’s all caring and everything—he made her a hot toddy and everything.”

“And you decided to come and talk to me.” It was a statement, not a question. Melissa’s mind was racing, but she knew she appeared calm on the outside. She’d had a lot of practice at that.

Andrea nodded hard, glanced nervously in the
direction of the door. “I knew Byron thought Nathan had taken the car, and when I heard about the robbery and headed over to Velda’s, and Nathan was there, I knew what had
really
happened. I sneaked out while he was making a fuss over Velda, making her a drink and everything, and then I was scared to go home, because Nathan knows where I live.”

Melissa rose from her chair, crossed to the wall phone, and picked up the handset.

Tom Parker answered on the first ring. “Stone Creek County Sheriff’s office,” he said. “This is Tom.”

Melissa launched right in, telling Tom everything Andrea had told her.

He didn’t interrupt, but simply listened.

“I’ll check it out,” he said, when she’d finished. “Keep Andrea there with you, and make sure all the doors and windows are locked up tight.”

“Tom,” Melissa said, after catching her breath. “Be careful, okay?”

“Always,” he promised, with a smile in his voice. “I’ll leave Elvis here to guard the prisoner.”

Melissa didn’t comment. “Call me,” she said.

“Lock up tight,” Tom responded.

And then he hung up.

Melissa checked the front door and all the windows. She brewed more tea, and she and Andrea moved to the living room, where there were draperies over the windows.

Melissa was definitely creeped out, and she knew Andrea was, too, although neither of them said much. Andrea seemed exhausted, and little wonder, after the night she’d put in.

Eventually, Andrea fell asleep on the couch.

Melissa covered her with an afghan Ashley had crocheted for her years ago, as a Christmas gift, and sat down in her easy chair again, huddled inside her bathrobe.

The clock on the mantel ticked ponderously. Every passing second seemed like a full minute to Melissa, every minute an hour.

At some point, she nodded off.

A
NDREA AWAKENED HER
with a cry of alarm. “My car is gone!”

Melissa straightened, blinking, surprised to find herself in a chair instead of her bed.

Andrea was standing by the window, holding back one of the drapes. Cold light spilled over her puffy face, and her cheeks were streaked with mascara and last night’s tears.

“Wh-what?” Melissa said, bumbling to her feet. Yawning.

“My car!” Andrea wailed. “I parked it right out there, at the curb, last night. And now it’s
gone!
”

“Are you sure?” It
was
a stupid question, but, despite years of getting up at the crack of dawn to go out and run, in actuality, Melissa wasn’t a morning person.

“Of course I’m sure!” Andrea replied. “It was there, and now it’s gone!”

Melissa sighed. Time to put in another call to Tom.

She picked up the cordless handset in the living room and punched in his office number.

“Stone Creek County Sheriff’s office,” he answered.

“Andrea’s car has been stolen,” Melissa blurted.

Tom was quiet for so long that Melissa spoke up again.

“Tom? What’s going on?”

He gave a raspy sigh. “I’ll tell you when you get here,” he said. “In the meantime, put Andrea on. I’m going to need as much information about her car as she can give me.”

“But—”

“When you get here, Melissa,” Tom repeated, sternly patient. “Oh, and fair warning. You’re bound to run into Steven Creed. He’s on his way here right now, to oversee Byron Cahill’s release.”

“You’re letting him go?” Another stupid question.

She needed coffee. Pronto.

“Yep,” Tom said.

Melissa turned to find Andrea standing wide-eyed at her elbow. “The sheriff wants to ask you some questions about your car,” she said to the girl.

“They’re letting Byron go?” Andrea asked softly.

Melissa nodded. “Sounds like it,” she said.

While Andrea was trying to remember her license-plate number and other pertinent details, Melissa hurried off to her room.

She dressed quickly, donning a black pantsuit, pulling her hair back and fastening it in place with a barrette. She applied minimal makeup and rejoined Andrea in the living room.

The girl was still standing there, looking dumb-founded with joy. Sure, her car was gone, possibly for good, but Byron was getting out of jail.

For Andrea, it was all good.

They both hopped into Melissa’s roadster, keeping the top up because it was a misty morning, and headed for the courthouse.

As fate would have it, the first person Melissa
encountered was Steven Creed. He was dressed for lawyering, as Big John would have said, in a tailored suit and shoes polished to such a sheen that they almost made her blink.

Andrea dashed past him, anxious to see Byron.

Steven’s expression was just short of smug, but something in his eyes made Melissa wary.

“What?” she finally whispered, standing there in the corridor, looking at him.

He straightened his tasteful tie—pale blue silk with very thin gray stripes running diagonally—and even though his mouth didn’t shape itself into a smile, he looked amused.

“So this is your evil twin,” he said, taking in her mean-business pantsuit, slapdash makeup job and prim, no-nonsense hairstyle. One of his eyebrows rose slightly. “I must admit, I like the other Melissa better, the one with no hard edges.”

Evil twin? Hard edges?

“Get out of my way,” Melissa said.

Steven didn’t move except to shove his hands into the pockets of his perfectly tailored trousers and cock his head to one side. “Temper, temper,” he scolded, with syrupy insolence. “Your edges are showing.”

She tried to go around him, but he blocked her way.

“Before you go in there, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Again, Melissa felt that quiet alarm. She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and silently instructed herself to calm the heck down. It was downright unprofessional, letting this man rattle her the way he did.

And even worse that he knew exactly what he was doing.

“All right,” she said, finally. “What is it?”

His face tightened almost imperceptibly, and he actually averted his gaze for a moment. “Velda Cahill was assaulted last night.”

“What?”

Steven relaxed a little, took a light hold on Melissa’s shoulders. “She’ll be fine in a few days,” he assured her. A muscle bunched in his cheek, and she saw a combination of anger and regret flare up in his eyes, gone as quickly as it appeared. “Carter knocked her around some last night, when he realized Andrea had slipped out of the trailer behind his back. He stole Velda’s watch and the contents of her tip jar and took off.”

Melissa felt cold all over. “Poor Velda,” she said. “That woman cannot catch a break.”

“She’s an inpatient at the clinic over in Indian Rock. I thought I should let you know ahead of time because Byron hasn’t been told yet. He’s bound to be shaken up, not to mention furious, and I figure he’ll want to go after Nathan Carter himself. If he does that, obviously, he’ll be back in jail for sure.”

Melissa nodded slowly. “Do you have a plan?”

“If it weren’t for Matt, I’d have Byron stay at my place until he settles down or Carter is in custody, whichever comes first. There are too many unknown factors in the equation, of course, and I’m not about to risk Matt’s being hurt. Tom and I talked it over, and he’s willing to take the boy in, since it’s just him and Elvis. God knows whether Byron will agree or not.”

Melissa pondered the idea. Given Byron’s history
with the sheriff, it didn’t seem likely, but stranger things had happened.

“Thanks,” she said stiffly, and this time when she moved to enter Tom’s office, Steven didn’t get in her way.

B
YRON WAS OUT OF THE CELL
and back in his civilian clothes, plunked sullenly in a chair next to Tom’s desk. Andrea stood behind that chair, her hands resting on Byron’s taut shoulders.

Following Melissa into the large, open room, Steven shifted his focus from her shapely posterior to the tasks at hand.

His gaze snagged with Tom’s.

“You must be out of your mind,” Byron blurted, glaring at the sheriff.

Elvis slunk over, placed his muzzle on the young man’s blue-jeaned thigh and made a soft sound full of sorrowful affection.

Byron automatically stroked the dog’s head, but he went right on trying to bore a hole through Tom Parker with his eyes.

Tom, perched casually on a corner of his big desk, looked unflappable. Initially, Steven had pegged the man for a rube, but he’d since revised his opinion. “I reckon three-quarters of the people I know would agree, since I just invited you to bunk on my screened-in sunporch for a while.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Byron snapped. Andrea’s fingers tightened noticeably, and he shrugged her off.

Tom glanced in Steven’s direction, and Steven nodded in response. Cleared his throat.

“Byron,” he said, “your mother has been hurt—”

Byron leaped to his feet and whirled around so fast that his chair toppled over and both Elvis and Andrea had to jump out of the way. “What happened to my mom?” Byron demanded. “How bad is—?”

Steven held up both hands, palms out. “She’ll be
fine,
Byron. They’re keeping her at the clinic a day or two, mostly for observation, but she’s going to be all right.”

Byron reddened, and clenched both fists at his sides. “
He
did it, didn’t he? That son-of-a-bitch Nathan Carter
hurt my mother!
”

Melissa went to stand beside a trembling, wide-eyed Andrea, putting an arm around the girl’s shoulders, giving her an encouraging squeeze. Essentially, holding her up.

Tom spoke next, quietly and with authority. “That’s what she told Deputy Ferguson when he took her to the clinic last night,” he said, watching Byron. Like Steven, he was poised to land on the kid if his temper got any further out of hand. “Velda has some cracked ribs, two black eyes and a split lip. And if there’s one thing your mother
doesn’t
need right now, it’s for you to get yourself into trouble all over again.”

Byron calmed himself a little, but not quite enough for Steven and Tom to let down their guard. He swore under his breath and thrust a hand through his rumpled hair, and his eyes filled with angry tears.

“You must have known it was Nathan who robbed the Stop & Shop,” Steven said reasonably, watching Byron. “Why didn’t you tell me, or Tom?”

Byron seemed to deflate, like a balloon two days after the party. He groped his way back into his chair.
Glanced up at Andrea with an expression of such profound concern that Steven himself was moved by it. “I would have, when the time was right,” he finally replied, “but I was in here and Carter was out there where he could do anything he wanted, and I was afraid for the people I care about.”

“Are you ready to tell me where you were headed last night, when you wrecked your mother’s car and Sheriff Parker hauled you in?” Maybe Tom had gotten an answer to that question in the interim, but Steven was still in the dark.

Byron’s shoulders sagged, and he spent a few moments petting Elvis before he made his reply. “I just panicked, that’s all,” he confessed. “I didn’t know where I was going. I just wanted to get away and hide out someplace, so I wouldn’t have to go back to prison.”

Tom’s response surprised everybody. “I can see why you’d freak out,” he said. He paused, gave a sigh, but his gaze was steady on the younger man’s face. “There’s an APB out on Carter,” he went on, “and we’ll get him. But it’s my job—mine and the department’s—to bring him in, not yours. You try to take matters into your own hands and you
will
go to jail, for violating your parole at the very least.”

Byron swallowed, nodded again.

Andrea moved away from Melissa and approached Byron’s chair. Laid a hand on his shoulder, like before. “You ought to stay with Sheriff Parker,” she said, very softly. “It’s good of him to offer, Byron. He’s trying to help you.”

A smile crooked the corner of Tom’s mouth. “Elvis is all for taking in a roommate,” he said.

Byron didn’t move for a long time. Then he put his hand on top of Andrea’s, gently squeezed her fingers.

“Okay,” he said.

And one matter, at least, was settled.

Now,
Steven thought ruefully,
to settle everything else that’s gone wrong lately.

As though reading his mind, Melissa looked at him and narrowed her eyes, in a like-hell sort of way. She told Andrea to take the day off, asked Tom to keep her posted on the statewide hunt for Nathan Carter, and breezed past Steven like he wasn’t even there.